Drake Ends His Tour and OVO Festival in His Hometown With Surprise Guests and Astonishing Effects

Mon, 2010-08-23 13:59

Coming back to his hometown of Toronto, phenom rapper “Drizzy” Drake ended with his last show at the Molson Amphitheater, during the 43rd annual Caribana Festival, a two-week celebration of Caribbean culture. The show was combined as the inaugural OVO Festival (October's Very Own, Drake's entertainment company) and the last leg of his Away From Home Tour, which kicked off this past spring. Pyrotek Special Effects and Laser Design Productions were on hand and added a series of impressive pyrotechnics as well as a multitude of powerful full-color lasers to the event.

Tour Manager Anthony (Tony) Moore contacted Lorenzo Cornacchia, (President of Pyrotek Special Effects Inc.) to create a range of hi-profile effects for the event. The challenge of course was the time crunch which was allotted to design the effects for the event. Collaborating with Lighting Designer Steven Root, Cornacchia and Victor Tomei (Laser Design's Operations Manager) discussed various layouts for the lasers and pyrotechnics in addition to which tracks to transition the effects to. The set consisted of four 25-watt OPS, full-color air-cooled lasers. The schedule allotted for one day to load in, set up and program, with the live show following the next day. Laser programmer Jason McEachern flew out for the two-days from his current affair at the rehearsals of the upcoming Jonas Brothers World Tour to program and design the lasers throughout the entire evening, operate the show and fly back to the Jonas rehearsals immediately after the show was complete. Two lasers were situated stage left and right to shoot over the keyboard and drum risers, the third laser was located upstage center shooting over the DJ and the fourth laser was mounted in the center upstage trussing and shot various beam and scan effects onto the downstage edge, reflecting off a mirror strip.

In order to implement the pyrotechnic effects in a smooth progression, Pyrotek had two of its top veteran pyrotechnicians on hand to create the explosive series of effects for Drake's titled song “Fireworks”. Reid Schulte Derne and Renato Sulmona who handle the massive pyrotechnics display on the current Metallica Death Magnetic World Tour were on a break and able to take part and implement the effects in flawless fashion. Reid collaborated with Cornacchia on the pyro design and operated the show while Cornacchia was at rehearsals with Jonas Brotheres. Towards the conclusion of the track, over 250 effects were designed to fire in multiple directions, various colors and sequences, essentially creating an impressive close-proximity firework display on stage. The Pyrotechnics included an assortment of comets, mines, airbursts along with a series of silver gerbs.

Additional performers that joined Drake on the bill were Rick Ross, Fabolous, Young Jeezy and Kardinal Offishal, however unannounced guest Eminem and Jay-Z joined Drake surprising the sold-out audience. Drake then closed things out on his own with a stirring rendition of his first single, "Over". After the event was complete, Steve Root commented on the addition of the effects “Everything looked incredible. I was actually jumping up and down, clapping my hands during Fireworks! The entire show was fantastic and the lasers filled in and complemented the lighting perfectly”.